Benjamin McEvoy

Essays on writing, reading, and life

Shakespeare’s Sonnets Podcast

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Reading Shakespeare’s sonnets in sequence across a span of many weeks, ranking your favourites, then attempting to possess the best by memory is one of the greatest literary joys a book-lover can pursue.

So today we’re kicking off the new year with a discussion on how to read the sonnets, why read the sonnets, and a deep analysis of my personal favourite sonnets (along with my top ten favourite sonnets of all time).

Timestamps and links to lovely literary stuff below the episode player.

Your Reading Assignments: 

  • Grab a volume of the sonnets and read them in sequence across the span of many weeks.
  • Then rank your favourites, compiling a top ten.

Shakespeare’s Sonnets Podcast (Hardcore Literature S3 E8)

The Poetry Lecture Series VIP Waiting List I mentioned in the show is here (discounts for early sign-ups):

Episode Timestamps:

  • 0:00 – When and why did Shakespeare start writing the sonnets?
  • 2:45 – the sonnet sequence: Fair Youth (1-126) and Dark Lady (127-154)
  • 4:45 – the four personas of the sonnets (Young Man, Dark Lady, Rival Poet, Speaker)
  • 5:45 – are the sonnets and their themes personal?
  • 6:45 – the sonnets are music, mirror endless interpretation, and every human colour
  • 7:35 – Shakespeare’s art of ellipsis
  • 8:35 – the two great joys of the sonnets + homework reading assignments
  • 12:00 – the reason I love the sonnets (my version of a Beethoven symphony)
  • 13:25 – Talmudic reading and how to possess a poem by memory
  • 14:00 – the Shakespearean sonnet form explained
  • 16:37 – two questions to answer when reading poetry (from W.H. Auden)
  • 17:45 – Proust’s connection with the sonnets
  • 18:52 – Harold Bloom on Shakespeare’s sonnets
  • 19:30 – Helen Vendler on the sonnets
  • 20:30 – reading the sonnets with your three/four brains
  • 24:50 – my ranking of the top ten best Shakespearean sonnets
  • 28:48 – a deep reading of sonnet 66
  • 42:13 – a deep reading of sonnet 121
  • 49:13 – “our social personality is a creation of the thoughts of other people” (Proust)
  • 52:28 – ending on a reading of sonnet 29
  • 53:58 – three things I would like you to do (reading assignments)

Recommended Editions of Shakespeare’s Sonnets:

Mentioned in the show:

  • Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece
  • Anthony Burgess’s Nothing Like the Sun 
  • Harold Bloom’s Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human
  • Helen Vendler’s The Art of Shakespeare’s Sonnets
  • Scott Newstok’s How to Think Like Shakespeare

The Top 10 Best Shakespearean Sonnets (in my opinion):

  1. 29 When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes
  2. 121 ’Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed’
  3. 116 Let me not to the marriage of true minds
  4. 66 Tired with all these for restful death I cry
  5. 129 ‘Th’Expense of spirit in a waste of shame’
  6. 73 That time of year thou mayst in me behold
  7. 144 ’Two loves I have, of comfort and despair’
  8. 20 A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted
  9. 30 When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
  10. 55 Not marble, nor the gilded monuments

What are your favourite Shakespearean sonnets?

W.H. Auden’s two questions when reading a poem:

The questions which interest me most when reading a poem are two. The first is technical: “Here is a verbal contraption. How does it work?” The second is, in the broadest sense, moral: “What kind of a guy inhabits this poem? What is his notion of the good life or the good place? His notion of the Evil One? What does he conceal from the reader? What does he conceal even from him- self?”

Harold Bloom on the sonnets:

Only one human is invented in the Sonnets, and he is not quite a representation of Shakespeare himself. ‘Selfsame’ with Shakespeare he is not, yet he lingers near Shakespeare, and fascinates us by that proximity.

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Comments

  1. David M. Keleel says

    Ben… I love all this and it so neatly fits into my life of reading (unskilled, untutored, no university, but learning from the works themselves and 30 years of reading and love Harold Bloom.)
    So please forgive my saying this one critical thing. You talk so fast on your podcasts that I miss much of what you’re saying. I had to stop listening for a week of two… and I missed hearing your enthusiasm and reasonable approach to the challenges. The last one I heard, about reading Shakespeare, seemed slower, more listenable. Others may love your rapid-fire approach and if so, don’t change a thing. I mean, after all, who do I think I am? (The question my confused, working-class, undereducated parents always asked me when they tried to understand why I was reading something called ‘Middle English’…. who indeed?

    Thanks, Ben.
    David Keleel

    • Ben McEvoy says

      Hi David! Thank you very much for such wonderful feedback. You are exactly the kind of reader I have in mind when I do these podcasts – someone whose natural curiosity and intelligence leads them to learn from the works themselves. Perfect! I’ve taken your feedback on board and I’ll try to slow down more. My excitement, along with my desire to get as much into the shows in the timeframe as possible, often makes me talk fast – but the material definitely deserves a slow down! Thanks for listening and, as you mentioned Middle English, you might be keen to know I hope to do some shows on Chaucer 🙂